It’s difficult to write an account of an experience in the Maldives without an introductory flailing of the arms and a bit of gurgling, followed by something that’s spelt a little bit like this. It’s all very professional, really. In fact, the world should celebrate that I’m not on Youtube because it all looks and sounds like Tom Hanks in Cast Away with a bit of spirit fingers sprinkled in the mix. (I am on Snapchat however, making the same noises at brownies and puppies on Broadway Market: Sparkncube) Even re-living the Maldives through these photos puts me on a high.

As mentioned in Part 1, the main attraction at Conrad Maldives – once you’ve gotten over (warning: this may take forever) the milky-white beach, azure skies and the most translucent water since bottled Fiji – is the sense of privacy and isolation. I’d fully embraced this inside my Water villa (with thumping rap music on the first night), with a tinge of suspicion that perhaps it was to be expected given the nature of architecture, but was promptly proven otherwise as we moved into a Deluxe Beach villa two nights later. In theory, your neighbours are close by, but the minute the gates click shut, you feel like a homeowner. And it’s a big home – larger in fact, than most of my previous London flats, and I don’t recall ever having an outdoors bath-pavilion (unless you count the one where water leaked from the ceiling). So there, yet another reason to move to the Indian Ocean.

Speaking of reasons to move, add these too – ten restaurants where one is 5m (16 ft) under water, and another inside a wine cellar; an extensive list of DVDs and snacks that can be ordered through room service for rainy afternoons after lunch; and a spa that is set on stilts with glass floors so that you can drift off counting the stripes of a family of clownfish (“three”) while your back gets some much-needed TLC. So yes, I would jump ship and go Tom Hanks for/at Conrad Maldives any day, as long as Wilson can pour me some bubbly at pink sunset, I’d be happily cast away for ever.

Park & Cube was a guest of Conrad Maldives, all views and opinions are my own. Shots of me with the help of Mr Tripod.

This place looks so dreamy. I can’t get over the stunning tropical scenery. Your photos are amazing, they look like a magazine. My favourite shot is of the close up of your instax camera with the polaroids and jewelry.

Your photos are always so stunning! I really want to stay here now. The sand looks so white & the water looks so blue, there are palms lining the beach & it looks almost deserted?? Paradise! I almost feel as if I could be there now, looking at your pictures.

Wow, your vacation seems wonderful! Would love to read a post about your go-to beauty products for a beach holiday by the way. I’ll be leaving for a holiday in the Southern Europe in July, and it’ll be hot there!

Gosh these photos are beautiful! Just out of curiosity, since you’re a creative, what do you do with all the polaroids you take? There are so many DIY projects on pinterest, but I’m always curious regardless… or nosey :) x

hahaha that first paragraph got me laughing. dude, your pictures… i just cannot deal. i need to get on a plane to the maldives asap. and that model of instax is so adorable! need me one of those as well.